A 44-unit housing project and 24-hour child care facility, costing just less than $18 million, broke ground in Kitimat on Aug. 8, with a crowd of provincial, municipal, and community leaders joining the gathering of 40 people to celebrate the start of construction.
Services will include on-site support for women leaving violence, including transgender women, non-binary and Two- Spirit people, and their dependent children. The development will allow women and their children to move from the transition house spaces into the second-stage units and affordable townhomes. The doors are anticipated to open near the end of 2023.
“This, it’s clear to me, is an essential example of why that housing is needed and why we need to continue to work with partners who were on the ground to make it a reality.” “So we recognized years ago that we really needed to redevelop the transition house, develop some second-stage and long-term housing for women and children in Kitimat,” she said, adding that in July, there was a groundbreaking for a 22-unit second-stage housing facility in Terrace.
Clients can move into their own second-stage apartment for six to 18 months, pay rent, and have access to support services from TSW such as safety planning, crisis intervention, parenting, and tenancy skills.